Two chefs reminisce about the origins of the famous “Seattle Dog” recipe.
SEATTLE — When Seattle Mariners fans pour out of T-Mobile Park after a game, hundreds turn to street vendors for a go-to local recipe: The Seattle Dog.
It’s known for its toasted bun, cream cheese schmear and grilled onions. The recipe and its origins, however, vary depending on who you ask.
The cream cheese concoction can be traced back to the 1980s and a man named Hadley Long. I asked around the restaurant community for his information, only to have him call me directly.
“Every year, people find me, you know,” Long said in a virtual interview from his home in Ohio.
Hadley moved away from Washington years ago, but he’s a Mariners fan at heart. He reminisced about seeing the 1995 game that sent the Mariners to the American League Championship Series.
“Ken Griffey, Jr. comes sliding into home… So we go to the championship with the Indians,” Long said. “I was at that game. Heck of a game.”
That was back when the Kingdome was still standing. In 1987, just blocks away, Long served up food to the nightlife in Pioneer Square.
“I was in the bagel business, and I started off selling vegetarian bagels and cream cheese,” Long said. “Pioneer Square was the place to be, and I was fortunate enough that I had ‘location, location, location.’”
Feet from the iconic Central Saloon, Long had a front-row seat to the city’s blossoming Grunge music scene.
“The one that would continually come by all the time [was] Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains,” Long said. “We just called them ‘Chains’ back then.” His bagel stand was also a frequent stop for Mother Love Bone, the band that would eventually split into Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam.
Long’s vegetarian bagel shop was not quite enough to satisfy the masses, though.
“I had to have thousands of people request, you know: Bratwursts,” Long said. “German sausage. Meat. Meat. Meat.”
He did not want to cave in to the pressure, so he came up with a creative solution.
“The Bagel Deli up on 15th in Capitol Hill, they had these bialy sticks that were incredible,” Long said. “They would only bake them for me.”
Long decided to put a cream cheese schmear on the custom bialy stick and add a hot dog.
“That way I didn’t totally sell out,” Long said.
Across town, “Dog in the Park” owner Ramazan Senturk claims to have stumbled upon the idea.
When he started his business in Westlake Park in 2005, Senturk added cream cheese to the hot dogs he ate for lunch. Soon, customers started asking for it.
“I tried cream cheese, and then onions,” Senturk said. “And then onions and different kinds of vegetables like leek and purple cabbage.”
Long’s story predates Senturk’s by nearly 30 years. Senturk acknowledged that.
“It’s a positive competition,” Senturk said. “That is his story. This is mine.”
Long also noted differences in the recipe. Grilled onions are popular today, but Long’s “bagel dog” was made with raw, diced purple onions instead.
His biggest point of contention is the bread.
“Nothing against the Seattle Dog as it’s known today, but they are pretty much white bread,” Long said. “It wasn’t that bialy bagel dough.”
Regardless of who invented the “true recipe,” Long and Senturk are proud of the national recognition the Seattle Dog receives.
“It’s nice to be mentioned up there with all those other infamous dogs like the Chicago Dog, the New York Dog,” Long said.
He said the business was never as profitable as it may have looked, but his idea took off.
“It sure looked like I was just making, you know, I just had to be making a fortune,” Long said. “I even had three bars beside me start to sell hot dogs because they were…envious, maybe?”
All these years later, Long still custom orders bagel bread to make his hot dogs for his work friends.
Senturk’s business has expanded to three locations. At the Space Needle, he serves up his hot dogs to tourists from all over the world, under the shadow of the Space Needle.
One tourist from Virginia tried it for the first time while visiting the city to watch the NCAA tournament.
“There’s a lot of different flavor in there,” the tourist said. “The cream cheese and caramelized vegetables really bring it out.”
Senturk gave a prideful smirk.
“You will change your city to Seattle, once you try my Seattle dogs,” Senturk said.
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